KAU launches mission to support women entrepreneurs

Facilities for product testing, marketing, and trial production extended to housewives and women groups

Women attending a training session on food processing at KAU’s Centre for Gender Studies in Agriculture and Farm Entrepreneurship Development, Mannuthy.

The Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) is on a special mission to develop women-friendly technologies to encourage women entrepreneurship.

The KAU's Centre for Gender Studies in Agriculture and Farm Entrepreneurship Development (CGSAFED) has taken up the mission of empowering women in agriculture and housewives to reap the benefit of commercially important technologies in the farm sector.

The centre has identified potential women entrepreneurs through field surveys and case studies. It has chosen women who have shown interest in business and are already engaged in small scale agri-business, said Dr. P.S. Geethakutty, head of the CGSAFED.

Counselling

They are given counselling and guidance to motivate them.

They are also provided with important linkages of business houses, technical experts, markets, banks and techno incubators, she said.

The centre identifies the facilities that impart intensive skill-based training for beginners to introduce to them innovative technologies. It frequently invites experts for conducting face-to-face programmes with farmers and skill imparting sessions.

“We conducted a skill development training in collaboration with the Krishi Vignan Kendra (KVK) of Pathanamthitta recently on home-based preservation and commercial products of jack fruit,” said Dr. Geethakutty.

Dr. Shana Harshan, scientist of the KVK, who is the pioneering technologist in jackfruit processing, has come out with a low cost technology for processing and preserving jackfruit for year-round product development.

The CGSAFED, in collaboration with the Dairy Technology Department of the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, had imparted value addition training for the Nature Fresh women dairy group of Alagappanagar, Thrissur.

Fruit and processing technology, mushroom cultivation, nursery management, flower arrangement and green leaf based product development are other value addition technologies women prefer to take up.

The centre is supporting innovative business ideas of housewives and women groups by providing facilities for product testing, market trials with consumers, labelling and connecting to incubators to have trial production, Dr. Geethakutty said.